E3 2010: Day 2

This will be more of a blow-by-blow of how the day went as I had spent most the first day oohing and aahing at the spectacle of it all. Having finished my first day of my first E3, I now had the lay of the land and was looking forward to seeing some more specific things. More than anything else, I wanted to get my grimy paws on Nintendo’s 3DS.

I anticipated that the wait was going to be pretty long, and upon arriving at Nintendo’s booth I found the line snaking around the length of their area and a corner or two. I met up with Kyle and we both proceeded to wait…and wait and wait in the slow-moving line. I lost track of time as we got closer, the video repeatedly blaring above our heads slowly burning into my mind.

After being in line for about an hour and a half, I found myself surrounded by many 3DS systems, each with an attractive woman standing behind it. Not wanting to be That Guy, (you know, the one who drools all over the booth babes) I conducted myself in a professional manner and reserved my drool for the 3DS itself.

To make a long story short, Nintendo has hit another one out of the park. The games look great and the 3D effect works beautifully without glasses (emphasis courtesy of Reggie Fils-Aime) and I cannot wait for launch day.

After I bade farewell to the 3DS (for now!), I hung around Nintendo’s booth to sample some of their Wii offerings: Mario Sports Mix, Goldeneye and Sonic Colors. In short: the first was fun, the second was great and well, it’s another Sonic game, whaddaya want?

I then took a short walk to the South Hall to sample some of Konami’s attempts to reboot some of their classic franchises. While it doesn’t have “Contra” in its title, the upcoming “Hard Corps” plays exactly like Contra, as in you shoot everything that moves and die a lot. The game now features very good looking anime-styled visuals. “Rush ‘N Attack: Ex-Patriot” is a reboot of a fairly obscure arcade/NES title. It was a different take on the stealth genre partially because it plays on a 2D plane. While that simplifies the gameplay a little bit, sneaking around and pulling off stealth kills was no less satisfying.

I then took a break for lunch and spoke with a gentleman from Immerz, a company working on an interesting peripheral. The “KOR-fx” goes over your shoulders and provides additional force feedback to further immerse you in the game. I tried it on while playing Left 4 Dead 2 on the Xbox 360 and it was pretty neat. As I made the character run, the unit provided slight vibrations as if I were running and it also shook my torso as I fired weapons and was attacked. I thought it was a cool idea and it will be interesting to see if it succeeds.

My interest in Final Fantasy is less than zero, so while I met the other guys at the Square Enix booth for a few moments, I didn’t hang around long. I have always looked on Tomb Raider with a big ‘meh,’ but the upcoming “Lara Croft and The Guardian of Light” looked intriguing enough for me to try it out. The game is an interesting blend of Tomb Raider, Diablo, and Smash TV and I liked what I saw. It just might open the franchise to a new audience, myself included.

I bounced around for awhile after that, seeing nothing terribly interesting (or at least not interesting enough to write about) and soon it was time to go. Overall, it was a fun day, and pretty much the end of my E3 as I would be leaving early on the last day.

- Eduardo

article id: 1419 | poster: OG